1. AP Literature Ms. Efford
What is Poetry?
AP Literature
Ms. Efford

2. Spring BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE When daisies pied and violets blue And lady-smocks all silver-white And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue Do paint the meadows with delight, The cuckoo then, on every tree, Mocks married men; for thus sings he, Cuckoo; Cuckoo, cuckoo: Oh word of fear, Unpleasing to a married ear! When shepherds pipe on oaten straws, And merry larks are plowmen’s clocks, When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws, And maidens bleach their summer smocks,

3. The opinions of “experts”
“Poetry might be defined as a kind of language that says more and says it more intensely than does ordinary language.” - Perrine, Sound and Sense
Poets from their own store of felt, observed, or imagined experiences select, combine, and reorganize. They create significant new experiences for their readers—significant because focused and formed—in which readers can participate and from which they may gain a greater awareness and understanding of their world.

4. The Purpose of Language
Read each of the following texts and describe:
The audience (who is this written FOR?)
The reader’s reaction
What is the purpose of the language used?

5. -- “the family Falconidae, to which eagles belong, is characterized by imperforate nostrils, legs of medium length, a hooked bill, the hind toe inserted on a level parallel to the three front ones, and the claws roundly curved and sharp; that land eagles are feathered fully to the toes and sea-fishing eagles halfway to the toes; that their length is about three feet and their wingspan about seven feet; that they usually build their nests on some inaccessible cliff; that the eggs are spotted and do not exceed three; and perhaps that the eagle’s ‘great power of vision, the vast height to which it soars in the sky, the wild grandeur of its abode, have…commended it to the poets of all nations.’” Encyclopedia Americana IX (1955) p

6. The Eagle He claps the crag with crooked hands; Close to the sun in lonely lands, Ringed with the azure world, he stands. The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; He watches from his mountain walls, And like a thunderbolt he falls. Alfred Lord Tennyson ( )

7. Analyzing “The Eagle”
What is the poetic shift in perspective from stanza 1 to stanza 2?
What is the purpose of this shift?

8. Analyzing poetry
The primary aim of a lyric is NOT to state an idea, but to enact an EMOTION.
Students should ask:
“What is the succession of feelings conveyed by the poem?
Students should NOT ask:
“What does the poem mean?” or “What is the speaker saying?”
The first question emphasizes the EMOTIONAL responses to the originating confusion that the poem exists to represent and act out.